15 February 2010
7 Ways to Make Your Restaurant More Family-Friendly
Posted by Crystal under: News; Recession Tips & Tricks .
Many consumers with kids love to dine out or pick up food from restaurants because it is faster and more convenient than cooking at home. Because parents with kids can potentially generate substantial revenue for your establishment, make sure your restaurant is family-friendly. Cater to families and children, and provide them with everything from special menus to fun activities. Here are some tips on how restaurant operators can easily attract more families to their restaurants:
Deliver Package Deals. Surveys show that consumers with kids are more likely to order package meal deals. Common package deals for kids include main meal, soft drink and dessert – all for a fixed price. Provide incentives for kids, and parents will be only happy to choose your restaurant.
Offer More Menu Items for Kids. It is important to remember that majority of consumers with kids prefer fast-food type restaurants and are less likely to attend fine-dining or even casual restaurants due to menu complexity or non-negotiable portion sizes. Provide your customers with a separate kids menu that offers more children-friendly nutritional menu items. Also, have an option for children to opt for smaller dishes from the main menu.
Keep Drinks Menu Fun. Offer more non-alcoholic beverages, and provide alcohol-free dining area. Create innovative and interesting kids-friendly drinks, such as fruit punches, frosty beverages, frozen yogurt mix drinks. Satisfy kids’ taste buds by offering creative and fun drinks kids usually love, such as frozen-fruit slushies, tropical smoothies, iced-tea punch, and milkshakes. A fun drinks menu is a great way for kids to feel special and pampered.
Create Money-Saving Offers. Parents are price-sensitive, and price is usually their most important consideration in choosing the restaurants. Provide coupons, discounts, and other value options. Consider deals tailored to families: discount meals, provide free drinks or desserts for guests under certain age. Some restaurants even allow kids aged 12 and under to eat for free off the kids menu (one child eats free per adult ordering a main meal from a regular menu).
Offer Family-Themed Dining Events. Make your restaurant a fun and exciting place to visit. Provide themed dining events, such as pirate adventure, train-themed dinner, dragon quest, or a nautical dinner. Provide family-friendly dinners for seasonal occasions, too, such as for Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day.
Provide Additional Services. Provide kids with fun activities to do while everybody waits for their meals. Such activities include puzzles, drawing sets, stickers, you name it. Restaurants should also be ready to handle the need to provide high chairs, provide diaper-changing areas, and arrangements for breastfeeding moms in the bathrooms. Have special family-seating areas and decorate them accordingly.
Restaurant Loyalty Programs. Loyalty marketing is about building lasting relationships with guests. You can even further your restaurant position as a family dining spot by adding a kids’ frequency-dining program that rewards young guests who eat. Rewards can be limited only by your own imagination: for instance, after six meals, kids get a free meal, or they can choose from a selection of children’s books, or get a fun gift. While your restaurant promotes the importance of paying tribute to the younger set, it also earns points with parents. The restaurant further benefits from such “in-house” market research by effectively tracking consumer spending.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.